There's been way too many bad or unfortunate or sucky things happening to people I know IRL or used to know IRL happening all at once and kind of just hunkering down and hoping it passes over me but sneaking suspicion is that it won't

I find myself having deeply conflicted emotions about bodily autonomy and parenting a toddler. My toddler recently had a horrible diaper rash on her rear end. It was red and inflamed and hurt her. And it hurt her so much, she didn't want us wiping her when she pooped. All sorts of clear "No, Mama. No Dada. No bottom. No wipe" statements, and turning away and crying.

And I felt paralyzed because this is her body and her privates and she doesn't want us touching them. I need to respect this! I don't want her to think her No will be ignored. But, practically, she's a toddler who needs her bottom cleaned. And so I have to clean it while she's crying and learning that Mommy or Daddy will not only ignore her wishes about her body but will hurt her if they feel they have a good enough reason.

A professor in my department is in the final stages of cancer, and sent out an email leaving his books to a handful of professors and students. We haven't worked together much, but he left me all his books about my specialty. What a weird, sad honor.

Last edited by Werel on Mon Sep 26, 2016 3:53 pm; edited 1 time in total

Wondering wrote:I find myself having deeply conflicted emotions about bodily autonomy and parenting a toddler. My toddler recently had a horrible diaper rash on her rear end. It was red and inflamed and hurt her. And it hurt her so much, she didn't want us wiping her when she pooped. All sorts of clear "No, Mama. No Dada. No bottom. No wipe" statements, and turning away and crying.

And I felt paralyzed because this is her body and her privates and she doesn't want us touching them. I need to respect this! I don't want her to think her No will be ignored. But, practically, she's a toddler who needs her bottom cleaned. And so I have to clean it while she's crying and learning that Mommy or Daddy will not only ignore her wishes about her body but will hurt her if they feel they have a good enough reason.

But the Daily Kos doesn't seem to know female anatomy (surprise!). If you're cleaning a child's vagina while changing her diaper, you're doing it wrong. You don't clean her vagina. You clean her vulva.

Hmmm, I'm slowly becoming a bit of a sneakerhead... them Jordan I's... I'm pretty sad they discontinued the Nike 6.0 like and replaced it with the the Nike SB line. The old 6.0's were the perfect blend of skate shoe padding and the style of Jordan I's or Air Force Ones. Sadly, Kanye's made shoes with Nike and now Adidas, tbh I don't like his shoes all that much. :T

I have a very generic username in another forum, and consequently I keep getting misgendered by the people I'm talking to. Every time, I'm surprised by how shocked and off balance it makes me feel. I present unambiguously IRL, so this is not a situation I've ever encountered before.

I don't know if it's just my current parish or if it's the current regressive archbishop or if it's changing American culture, but I do not remember this much anti-abortion stuff in church when I was a kid. And I'm so so tired of it. You want me to pray for laws that will end abortion? Fine! I'll pray for free medical care and fully paid, lengthy maternity leave and free childcare and no paternity rights for rapists and accurate sex ed and promotion of contraception. I'll also pray for an end to shaming of unmarried moms. Though that's not a law, it's certainly a cultural issue.

I know a couple of you here used to be Catholic. I envy you your ability to stop. I wish I had been raised Episcopalian. That has all the pomp and ceremony I like without the sexism and homophobia.

Having some serious "path not taken" thoughts at the moment. I never really paid attention to my parents stories of my dad's days hanging out with the hacker/programmer crowd back at Harvard/MIT in the late 80s, I mean they're your parents stories, no kid really listens to them or fully understands them. But bit by bit I've been understanding them more, and starting to realize how drastically different our lives could have been. My dad was buddies with a dude who is now a highly influential billionaire venture capitalist in silicon valley, the type who is famous enough to be a common name among the tech crowd. One of the businesses his friends started was purchased by Yahoo for millions. He interviewed at Microsoft and other tech companies and very easily could have joined their ranks, having training and skills that were still rare at that time, and he turned it all down to play house with his new girlfriend (now my mom) and went into academia instead.

I remember him once telling me that he could have gone to work for Google and been a millionaire. I guess I never really registered that, because like parents tell you things and as a kid you're like "yeah whatever you're talking boring adult things again, not interested."

And weird as this feels for me to say, I'm glad he didn't. We're a pretty comfortable upper middle class family, he's fairly well known in his obscure little corner of academia and proud of his work, and I can only think of how miserable I would have been if I had grown up in Palo Alto, how much more severe my lifelong depression and anxiety and imposter's syndrome and crippling fear of failure would have been if I'd grown up going to school with the children of tech geniuses, feeling like I could never live up to my peers. So I guess... I'm thankful I was given normalcy, even if I still turned up kinda screwy in the end.

_________________Foster! It saves lives! And kittens! People will just give you kittens! For free!